Week in Pictures

What a fun weekend! First, a treasured few days with my dear friend M who took the train down for another weekend visit (this is her with Pix Patisserie‘s Benedictine hot toddy), and we had lots and lots of girlfriend time catching up while of course eating drinking, and being merry at 3 Doors Down, Petite Provence, Tapalaya and Pix. Second, I said a tearful bon voyage to my old friend S (this is her in front of her big beautiful tree that greets visitors to her house) as she too is leaving Stumptown for the country. I’ve known her almost as long as I’ve been back in town since she ran a little plant nursery in the neighborhood and watched her evolve into a horticultural therapist (I love the story of how I was planning to study HT at PCC and she came along with me to an informational session and turns out it became her thing and not mine, hahaha – she’s much better suited for it than I!). And now she’s experiencing a similar energy going to also spread her wings somewhere, with more space, in a new community. It’s kind of a trip as I also heard from an old friend in Seattle who is also leaving the big city…2018 will be big for many of us, I have a feeling!

One down, three to go! I’ve been VERY busy these past few weeks with new client work involving four new gigs, and at the end of the third week I’ve got my first one finished up, woo hoo! I don’t usually post much about my recruiting work in these weekly picture posts but considering it’s taken up every living second of my time recently, I’m sharing! Here’s to soon hitting the halfway mark!

So when you live in the city, rats are going to show up sooner or later on your property, especially if you keep chickens or ducks (we have at least 3 or 4 owners including ourselves on our block alone), and so after spotting a few with a reaction that I can only describe as Ugly Throat-Killing Scream, we called the county’s vector control guy who not only gave us 5 good snap traps, but educated us on the one thing we weren’t doing: pre-baiting the traps and setting them out for a few days to get rats used to their presence and to trust it as a food source.., and THEN actually setting them. Let’s just say within a 24 hour time period my dear sweet husband emptied 9 dead rats into a plastic bag and disposed of them, and we’ve got more traps out now for any nieces and nephews that might come visiting our garage, et al. I’m so so glad for my husband, as this is well out of my wheelhouse of courage, to put it mildly.

Since the last time we were at the Rhododendron Garden was Dan’s first week in America after moving here, and we were bound and determined to get back this spring before we depart my hometown for the coast. It was well worth it – overcast weather perfect for enjoying the colors, birds everywhere, and my sweetie by my side. The shot of Dan taking a photo is a tribute to a shot I took of him during our first trip to the Royal Botanic Garden in Melbourne together back in 2013 (when we were still in our “Trans-Pacific” romance…). Nice exhale…

And whoa y’all, the Scandal finale is this week. I’m loving this final season and can’t wait to see how Shonda & Kerry & Co. wrap this up. Now if Grey’s Anatomy would ever wrap up, I could have my Thursday evenings back!